The cryptocurrency business is infamous for its volatility and unpredictability. Its unforgiving nature has led to a number of Singaporean cryptocurrency startups closing their doorways in just some years since their inception.
Nonetheless, not all have bitten the mud. We delve into 4 cryptocurrency startups in Singapore that not solely stand sturdy, however proceed to thrive within the international area amidst the ever-changing and unpredictable crypto panorama.
1. Zilliqa
Born out of peer-reviewed educational analysis performed on the Nationwide College of Singapore, Zilliqa was based in 2017 by a crew of lecturers, entrepreneurs, and engineers.
In 2018, Zilliqa concluded its preliminary coin providing (ICO) and efficiently raised US$22 million in ETH.
Following the ICO in 2018, the Zilliqa ecosystem and neighborhood has grown considerably, processing virtually 12 million transactions since its launch in 2019. Zilliqa now has a flourishing neighborhood of over 150,000 fanatics, greater than 780,000 wallets, and an increasing community of over 1,000 builders.
As one of the distinguished names inside Singapore’s blockchain ecosystem, upon its mainnet launch in January 2019, Zilliqa turned the world’s first public blockchain constructed on sharded structure. Sharding is a database administration method that breaks a database into smaller segments, permitting transactions to be processed in parallel and at scale.
In late 2019, Xfers — a Singapore-based FinTech platform — launched the primary SGD-pegged stablecoin ($XSGD) on the Zilliqa blockchain.
This MAS-approved initiative brings immense potential for the Singapore blockchain ecosystem, permitting SGD-denominated trades and transactions to happen on the blockchain. With $XSGD, the Singapore greenback successfully turned the third most tokenised foreign money on this planet.
All through 2020, the proliferation of decentralised finance (DeFi) purposes throughout the blockchain area led to unprecedented progress alternatives for the crew.
As a sensible contract platform characterised by high-performance, low charges, and enterprise-grade safety, Zilliqa is designed for purposes that deal with high-value transactions reminiscent of DeFi merchandise.
Zilswap, the primary decentralised alternate on the Zilliqa blockchain, went dwell in 2020 and has since seen a 24-hour buying and selling quantity rising to over US$11 million.
As a part of Zilliqa’s DeFi ecosystem, a variety of decentralised purposes additionally went dwell on the Zilliqa mainnet. These embody the likes of NFT minting service and market Mintable.app, decentralised area service supplier Unstoppable Domains, and blockchain gaming software zilFighters.
To develop its ecosystem additional, Zilliqa additionally has its ZILHive initiative which seems to be to advertise blockchain by way of accelerator, incubator, schooling, and enterprise initiatives.
Zilliqa Capital, the mission’s central enterprise and funding hub, was not too long ago launched in March. Zilliqa Capital goals to put money into decentralised and fintech options throughout investing, wealth administration, insurance coverage, lending, funds, and remittances, in addition to vital infrastructures that can allow Net 3.0.
Transferring ahead, the promise of excessive yields and low gasoline charges ensures that Zilliqa is the best blockchain for brand new tasks and experiments to construct on and blossom, solidifying its place as a legit contender as a protocol of alternative within the DeFi area.
2. Switcheo
Switcheo planted its roots in 2018 with the launch of the world’s first decentralised alternate (DEX) on China-based blockchain platform Neo in a time when DEXs have been comparatively remarkable.
The alternate enabled customers to commerce crypto property in a trustless method immediately from their very own wallets and with out the necessity for a central middleman.
Switcheo’s reputation was evident from the get-go. Underpinned by its progressive expertise and bold plans to decentralise monetary markets, the startup raised over US$8 million in its ICO.
Three years on, Switcheo has gone above and past in launching new progressive merchandise and options in an increasingly-saturated business reminiscent of Demex, the open monetary platform constructed on the Switcheo TradeHub sidechain, which has surpassed $75 million in buying and selling quantity since its December launch.
Demex permits its customers to freely commerce crypto property throughout completely different blockchains reminiscent of Bitcoin, Ethereum, Binance Good Chain, or Neo. By staking the $SWTH token on Demex, customers may earn a lower of all trades made on Demex.
The crypto natives additionally inked strategic partnerships with notable business gamers DeFiance Capital, Three Arrows Capital, Zilliqa and NGC Ventures, whose backing will serve to additional propel the expansion of the corporate.
Transferring ahead, Switcheo plans to develop Demex into changing into the go-to cross-chain decentralised buying and selling alternate, permitting the mission to seize worth for its buyers throughout all related blockchains.
3. Coinhako
Based in 2014, Coinhako began with a quite simple mission: to create a easy and hassle-free strategy to entry Bitcoin in Singapore.
Since then, the cryptocurrency centralised alternate (CEX) has scaled to providing its providers for different nations in Asia. It provides a number of cryptocurrency buying and selling pairs and has grown into one of the distinguished platforms within the area.
Coinhako can be one of many longest-standing platforms, having survived by way of the 2014 and 2018 ‘crypto winters’, by preserving their heads down and persevering with to construct and concentrate on R&D.
In 2021, Coinhako has emerged as a key participant in Singapore’s cryptocurrency business. It boasts help for over 30 tokens together with $BTC, $ETH, $DAI, $LTC, $XRP and extra (in distinction, Binance.sg solely helps eight completely different tokens).
Coinhako additionally helps the shopping for and promoting of cryptocurrencies by way of Xfers, financial institution switch, or credit score and debit playing cards.
Attributable to its huge help for varied crypto property and integration with a number of fiat gateways, Coinhako stays one of the simply accessible and beginner-friendly methods for brand new buyers in Singapore to realize publicity to cryptocurrencies in Singapore.
Being one of many pioneers within the area and surviving the gruelling crypto winters, Coinhako has definitely earned its spot on this record. Transferring ahead, the crew will proceed to construct upon their product suite, with the aim of providing a extra strong suite of cryptocurrency providers for its customers.
4. Kyber Community
Based in 2017, Kyber Community is a liquidity hub that aggregates liquidity from a variety of liquidity sources to energy immediate and safe crypto exchanges for any decentralised purposes with out the necessity of an middleman.
As a hub of liquidity protocols, Kyber has constructed KyberPRO framework catered to skilled market makers and not too long ago launched a complicated AMM protocol, Kyber DMM.
Kyber DMM is the world’s first permissionless Dynamic Market Maker protocol with higher flexibility and intensely excessive capital effectivity. Extra use-case particular protocols will probably be added to Kyber to allow completely different liquidity suppliers with their very own distinctive wants to supply liquidity for Kyber.
Kyber is being utilized by greater than 100 blockchain tasks around the globe and have facilitated over $5 billion price of buying and selling quantity. Utilizing Kyber, builders can construct progressive purposes, together with immediate token swap providers, ERC20 cost flows, and monetary DApps.
The community is open-sourced and ruled by the KyberDAO, decentralised neighborhood of KNC token holders who stake their tokens and collectively vote and resolve on the important thing parameters and get rewards in return.
Kyber Community is certainly one mission that each one Ethereum customers ought to carry on their radar.
It’s not straightforward to not crash and burn
The cryptocurrency business is quick and unforgiving. Tasks which fail to adapt will inevitably fail.
Solely tasks that are backed by a robust and rising crew, in addition to an engaged and lively neighborhood will survive in the long term.
We’re completely satisfied to see many native startups continually studying and adapting to not simply preserve their groups afloat, but in addition blossom over time. Each now and again, it’s good to look again at how far a few of these startups and communities have come.
This text is a contribution by Jack Yeu, the co-founder of Switcheo.
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Featured Picture Credit score: Ziliqa / Kyber Community / Coinhako / Switcheo
